


only bought this dress so you could take it off

by pirateygoodness



Series: deep blue (but you painted me golden) [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 13:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18965791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirateygoodness/pseuds/pirateygoodness
Summary: The thing about being a fairy godmother is this: her time is not her own.That's why it's a curse, she sees it now. It's not the magic or the power, the tantalizing experience of having so much of it and not being able to use it. Nora's used to that feeling already. But time is infinitely more precious, and she's wastedso muchof it on other people in her life. She's wasted most of her lifetime, if she thinks about it, on her father and on Mallus and on being a demon vessel and then being in dumb fake time travel baby jail to make up for all of the other time and she was so close. So close to having a life that felt like her own.Mona's worth it, though.Nora's not sure how she managed to find someone worth being cursed for.





	only bought this dress so you could take it off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zaritarazi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaritarazi/gifts).



> Dedicated to @kendrasaunders who is aging gracefully this week and is just as into these two dorks kissing as I am. Happy birthday, pal. Title from "Dress" by Taylor Swift

The thing about being a fairy godmother is this: her time is not her own. 

That's why it's a curse, she sees it now. It's not the magic or the power, the tantalizing experience of having so much of it and not being able to use it. Nora's used to that feeling already. But time is infinitely more precious, and she's wasted _so much_ of it on other people in her life. She's wasted most of her lifetime, if she thinks about it, on her father and on Mallus and on being a demon vessel and then being in dumb fake time travel baby jail to make up for all of the other time and she was so close. So close to having a life that felt like her own. 

Mona's worth it, though. 

Nora's not sure how she managed to find someone - more than one someone - worth being cursed for. 

+

"Hey," Mona says, after they get Nate back. They're still at Heyworld, the dust settling around them and Nora can't believe how good Mona looks. How alive. She's wearing that big cozy sweater with the ladybugs on it and she's smiling and there's colour in her cheeks. It makes everything feel alright again. "Book club tomorrow?" 

Nora laughs. It feels so easy to laugh with Mona, and - of course. Of course book club tomorrow, and the next day, and whenever Mona wants. What she says is, "I haven't read the book." 

Mona shrugs. She reaches for Nora's free hand - the one not carrying her wand - and Nora lets her. Mona laces their fingers together, swings her hand back and forth. "It doesn't matter," she says. "Ava doesn't read the book half the time either." 

"How will we discuss it?" 

Mona smiles and it's wide and bright and Nora's missed her so much. She feels the weight of Mona's grin like a hand around her heart, squeezing tight in the best possible way. "I'll fill you in on the highlights," she says. 

+

Book club is at Ava's house, this time. 

It's Mona and Nora and Ava and Sara now, enough people that one bottle of wine splits evenly. Sara's read the book, and Ava's pretending to but she's definitely skimmed the Wikipedia summary at best. They're disgustingly in love, calling each other _babe_ and somehow managing to sit on each other's laps at the same time. Ordinarily, Nora would be nauseated. 

Tonight she's not. She's perched on the end of Ava's couch, the glitter fabric of her dress itching against the backs of her knees and she can't stop thinking about the fact that Mona won't stop holding her hand. She started half an hour ago, during one of the many interludes for Sara and Ava to make gross faces at each other. "Hey," Mona had stage-whispered. "I'm glad you made it." 

Nora had squeezed her hand back, whispered, "Me, too."

Mona still hasn't let go of Nora's hand. She keeps her glass of wine in her other one, gesturing with it as she talks in a way that makes Nora vaguely concerned for Ava's upholstery. Nora doesn't need any wine. She just wants to sit here and watch, listening to Mona and Sara get into an argument over whether it's even important, narratively, to figure out who the real killer is. 

 

They take a break to get more wine, eventually. 

Ava and Sara disappear to the kitchen, and Mona and Nora are left by themselves to ignore the low giggles and unsubtle kissing noises that mean it'll probably be a while before they come back. 

"You know, I never got to thank you," Mona says. 

"For what?"

Mona plucks at Nora's skirt. A shower of magical glitter floats up and then falls back down into the fabric. Fuck this _fucking_ dress. "For this," Mona says. "For saving my life." 

"More like trying and failing," Nora says, rolling her eyes. 

"You sacrificed your freedom for me," Mona insists. "That's big hero stuff." 

"Oh." 

Mona has this way of looking that's so earnest it almost feels uncomfortable. She doesn't think she's ever met anyone capable of this much naked, honest affection, and all of it is trained on Nora. Nora doesn't think she's ever felt quite this loved before. "It was probably the most romantic thing I've ever seen." 

Mona's tongue darts out, licks her bottom lip. Nora realizes that she's been staring. She's been staring at Mona's mouth, specifically, for reasons she can't quite explain. It hits Nora like a physical jolt, shivery flutters beginning in her belly as something clicks into place in her brain: _you dumbass, you're in love with her._

What she says is: "Oh."

"I'm really grateful," Mona says. She blinks, and Nora finally understands what it looks like to see someone's eyelashes flutter. Her mouth looks so close and so soft and Nora's heart feels like it's trying to leap out of her chest, dragging her closer to Mona. Never in a million years has she thought about kissing Mona but now that she's here and it's occurred to her, Nora can't believe she hasn't been thinking about it constantly. What an amazing idea. What a perfect, wonderful, soft thing it would be to kiss Mona, to tell her how perfect she is. 

"You're welcome," Nora mumbles. She feels two things at the same time. 

One: Mona's hand on the back of her neck, fingertips brushing against Nora's hairline as Mona looks up at her with a question in her eyes. She feels her whole body answer it with enthusiasm: _yes, please. This._

Two: she feels herself disintegrate. It's almost familiar now, the pull of someone in another room, dimension, timeline saying _Oh, Fairy Godmother_ and the automatic, magical reaction. She feels it like a hook behind her ribs, pulling her backwards as her body melts into nothingness, sparkles left in her place as she dissolves into nothing but her thoughts and rematerializes somewhere far away. 

She opens her eyes and sees Gary, waiting for her. Suddenly, she wants to cry. 

+

This is the other thing about being a fairy godmother: she can be pulled from one end of the universe to the other in an instant, but she has to find her own way back. 

+

This is the _other_ other thing: time couriers and cell phones don't always react well to magic. 

+

Nora borrows five dollars in quarters from the security guard who works at the Time Bureau, and walks to the nearest pay phone. She calls Ava. 

Sara answers the phone, sounding definitively like she's in the middle of doing something extremely athletic that Nora never wants to think about. Book club is over. Mona said she wasn't feeling well and went home. 

Nora uses the rest of her quarters to take the bus to Mona's apartment. It's eleven at night on a Tuesday and Nora doesn't care that she's trying to be a good person, she'd murder someone cheerfully to be able to wear a pair of pants and a goddamn sweatshirt. 

(Seven separate people ask her if she's on her way to a costume party, and she doesn't hurt any of them even a little bit.) 

+

Nora knocks on Mona's door. She doesn't answer, but Nora can hear the sounds of someone crying. 

"Mona," she says, as loudly as she dares in the hallway. "Mona, it's me." 

Mona opens the door. She's wearing her ladybug sweater over her pyjamas and her eyes are swollen from crying. "It's you," she whispers. 

"It's me." 

Mona all but drags Nora into the apartment, pulls her by the arm and urges her forward and Nora's not expecting it, overbalances and knocks Mona flat on her back on the floor. Mona grunts as she hits the floor, then again as Nora lands on top of her, only half-bracing herself. "Hi," Nora whispers, through a wave of magical sparkles from her dress hitting the floor. 

"Hi." Mona touches Nora's forehead, runs her fingertips along the edge of Nora's hairline to tuck her hair back behind her ears. 

It's so tender. She's so - _Mona._ Nora can't believe she didn't notice sooner. 

This time, she doesn't hesitate. She lowers herself down and onto Mona's mouth and they kiss for the first time on Mona's living room floor. It's soft and slow and sweet and everything Nora could have wanted in a first kiss. Mona's lips are just as nice to kiss as Nora thought they'd be, and when her tongue darts across Nora's lower lip she feels those flutters start in her belly again. She feels her heart get full, up to the brim. 

Suddenly she _understands_ why this is a curse, in a way she didn't before. 

Kissing Mona feels like coming home, and she knows that someone will pull her away when she least expects it. 

+

Being a fairy godmother has taught Nora the value of time. It's also taught her the importance of not wasting it. 

+

She comes to Mona when she can. She buys a bus pass and memorizes all the routes that go past Mona's building. 

"How long do we have this time?" Mona asks, every time. 

"Let's not think about it," Nora replies. 

+

It's hard. It's awfully, painfully hard. Nora wants nothing more than to spend days, _weeks_ with nobody but Mona. She wants to kiss Mona and spend the day with Mona and fall asleep with her and wake up with her and do it all over again until they've both had their fill. 

But if she can't have that, at least she can have this. 

Nora can have the memory of knocking on the door with their secret knock, and hearing Mona run to open it. She can remember being dragged inside and keeping her balance this time, Mona shoving her back against the inside of the door and kissing her so hard and fast that it takes Nora's breath away. "That's cheating," Nora whispers. 

"Maybe," Mona sighs, eyes still glowing just a little. "I just wanted to kiss you as fast as I could." 

Mona just says things like that to Nora, like it's not a big deal. She talks about it like being in love isn't a dark, terrible secret, and slowly but surely Nora's starting to believe her. "I liked it," Nora sighs back. 

Mona giggles, pulls Nora close and laughs even harder as a shower of sparkles from Nora's dress fly over them both. "Come on," she says. "Let's get you out of this." 

 

Nora's number one, ultimate fantasy these days is to be able to choose her own clothes. Mona indulges her. She buys sweaters and jeans in Nora's size, leaves them out next to her bed so that Nora can change as soon as she arrives. The dress appears back on her body every time she dematerializes, but at least when she's here she gets a break from it. 

It seems silly, to get undressed just to get dressed so that Mona can undress her. But Nora prefers making out in clothes that make her feel like herself, and Mona understands. 

(Besides, the glitter gets _everywhere_ if she doesn't.)

They spend their days on Mona's bed. Sometimes they read books, burning through the stack of novels that Mona keeps on her nightstand. Sometimes Nora starts reading a book, and then she looks over at Mona and she doesn't want to read anymore. 

Mona's at her prettiest when she's reading. She likes to read lying on her stomach the best, sprawled out with her feet resting near the head of the bed. Nora loves watching her reactions. Everything Mona feels is written across her face, all the time. It's one of her best qualities. She frowns at the scary parts, or the parts where the hero is being a jerk to their love interest. She cries at the emotional parts, and reads with her lip caught between her teeth during all of the sex scenes. Nora likes interrupting her during those best of all.

(They haven't had sex yet. They've come close before - so close, and _fuck_ if there was ever a worse time for someone to need their fairy godmother - on more than one occasion. But it doesn't feel right to Nora, starting something that she's not sure she can finish.) 

"Hey," Nora says, while Mona's tucked into _Uncaged Desire_ for what must be her tenth re-read. She ducks in and inserts herself between Mona's face and the pages and kisses her. 

"What?" Mona says. There's a lightness to her tone, honey-sweet and knowing, that tells Nora she knows what. 

"I'm sick of reading." 

"Oh," Mona says, carefully tucking her bookmark in to keep her spot. "What did you want to do instead?" 

Nora shrugs. "Oh, you know. I thought maybe we'd go bowling." 

Mona's already crawling up the bed, turning Nora onto her back. "Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah," Nora says. Mona kisses her, slow and searing until it feels like Nora's whole body is blooming. "It's the number one most romantic sport." 

Mona's got her hand underneath Nora's sweater and she's teasing her there, running her fingertips across the bare skin of Nora's belly. It's comforting-but-not, just on the edge of sexual but Nora's got so much longing built up at this point that it sets her tingling all the same. "I'm not sure bowling is a sport," she says. 

Nora shrugs. "Hobby sport, then," she says, breathlessly. 

Mona giggles against Nora and kisses her again. "I think I'd rather do this," she says. "Is that alright?" 

"I want to be your fairy godmother," she whispers into Mona's mouth. 

"I'd call you all the time," Mona says. "For emergency kisses." 

"You wouldn't, though. You'd let me be - I could be myself. You'd let me. I trust you." 

"We'd have time," Mona whispers. There's an edge to her voice, a heaviness that she tries to force away. "So much time." 

Nora kisses Mona as deeply as she can, just in case. "I'd love that," Nora says, her lips brushing against Mona's. "So much." 

+

Being a fairy godmother is a curse. But Nora knows about magic. Curses aren't always forever.


End file.
